Wiretap: The year was strange enough, and then came the Oscar gaffe heard round the world

So maybe this will be the strangest year on record. This Oscar night was pretty much like any other Oscar night — quite long, sometimes funny, sometimes moving, more often dull — before the not-even-in-Hollywood ending made it the most memorable Oscar night in history. Thanks to the gaffe heard round the world, they got the best-picture award wrong, and everyone was waiting for Donald Trump to say the voting was rigged. Via Deadline.

Before the big Oscars screwup, Andrew Sullivan wrote in New York magazine of the humanity in Moonlight and how it shines in the time of Trumpian darkness.

In Donald Trump’s first big legislative move, he’s calling for a budget with substantial increases in military spending and cuts nearly everywhere else except in Social Security and Medicare. Via The New York Times.

Doyle McManus: When Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he never mentioned Ronald Reagan’s name. When Steve Bannon spoke, he never mentioned Reagan either. Have the Trumpists abandoned St. Ron? Via The Los Angeles Times.

It looks as if some Republicans are starting to find their voices on the Senate probe into the Trump team’s relationship with Russia. If so, the year is bound to get even stranger. Via Bloomberg.

Now it’s Trumpcare vs. Obamacare and all that’s at stake, writes the New Yorker’s Atul Gawande, is the future of the American health-care system. Oh, and maybe many American lives.

A Washington Post reporter and photographer drove across the state of Iowa, from the Mississippi River to the Missouri, to talk to Trump voters. This may not surprise you, but many of those voters are a little confused by the president’s first month.

New York Times editorial: The argument against Trump’s immigration policies don’t begin or end on moral grounds. Kicking out millions of undocumented immigrants would be an economic disaster.

Why did Keith Ellison lose the race for the Democratic National Committee chair? Let’s just say it’s complicated. Via The Washington Post.

From The National Review: Don’t be deceived. Tom Perez, the new DNC chief, is a hardcore progressive committed to full-blown opposition to the Trump administration.

The story of the transgender wrestler who identifies as male but was forced to wrestle as a female in the Texas state high school tournament. He won. And a lot of people are upset either by the rule or by the fact that he decided to keep wrestling. Via The Washington Post.

Photo by Vinnie C. via Flickr: Creative Commons